


Ex Machina

by mistr3ssquickly



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Meta, What's this stormpilot doing in my skysolo, this was way too much fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7091125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe and Finn watch a movie together. Finn has questions afterwards. Existential questions. Poe does his best to answer them. It goes about as well as you might guess it would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Machina

**Author's Note:**

> This story isn’t going to make any sense if you haven’t seen _Ex Machina,_ and reader beware that spoilers for _Ex Machina_ abound. Also-also, you should totally see _Ex Machina_ if you’ve not yet, because it’s pretty goddamn tight.

**Ex Machina**

“I don’t get it,” Finn announces as the holo fades, signalling the end of the file, his voice rich and warm in contrast to the sounds produced by the outdated speakers. He turns to look at Poe, the first time he’s moved since Poe started the holo a scant two hours earlier, his brow furrowed in the expression of confusion he wears less these days than he did back when he was newly liberated from his life under white duraplast armor. Poe takes it in, that expression. Indulges in it, long enough for amusement to bleed through into his own expression, pulling his mouth into a grin he’s confident will annoy Finn.

“What’s to get?” he says. “Man plays God and gets killed by his own creation.” He sweeps his hand. “A cautionary tale.”

“Okay, but why’d she hate him?” Finn wants to know.

A decent question. Poe pushes himself up out of the comfortable sprawl he adopted ten minutes into the holo, rolling his neck a little to work out the stiffness in his back. _Because that’s how the writers wrote the story_ is his first impulse, but he knows from past experience that if he tells Finn that, Finn will just want to know _why,_ and when Poe answers honestly that he doesn’t know, Finn’ll want to know _why_ for that, too. It’s endearing in an abstract sort of way, but it’s a trip down the rabbit-hole Poe’s not especially interested in taking this evening. “Because he was going to kill her?” he hazards.

“I don’t get that, either,” Finn says. His brow’s still furrowed, maybe moreso now than it was before. “Why erase her? Why not just download her memories and let her help him make the next model?”

“Arrogance,” Poe says with another sweep of his hand.

For whatever reason, that seems to satisfy Finn. He turns back to stare at the dull durasteel wall where the holo was projected and rubs the side of his right index finger with the pad of his thumb, sighing heavily enough that Poe can feel the curl of his breath tickling across his bare feet. “Does it bother you, seeing stories like that?” Finn says without turning to look at him.

“Why would it?” Poe says.

Finn looks at him like he’s dim, an expression he learnt from someone (Poe’s pretty sure it was Jessika, though it might’ve been Snap or -- gods forbid -- the great General Organa herself), and says: “I didn’t mean you.”

His gaze shifts again and it hits Poe like a shot of Turbilian whiskey on an empty stomach that Finn’s not looking at the wall, he’s looking at BB8, the little ‘droid considering the both of them with the sort of stillness he takes on whenever he’s observing and cataloguing and learning, a habit of his that’s gotten him banished from their shared sleeping quarters over the precious few months Finn’s been more than just a friend to Poe, more than just another Resistance rescue project. He swivels his optic a degree to the right, considering Poe. Returns to his original position to consider Finn once again, tipping his cranial dome three degrees in a very organic affect of curiosity.

His answer, when it comes, is equal parts honesty, rudeness, and absolute _hilarity,_ his righteous indignation at Poe’s bark of laughter combining with Finn’s _what’d he say?_ like two strands of music winding together in delicate harmony.

“He said no,” Poe translates.

Finn frowns. “He said more than that,” and BB8 beeps in agreement.

“He said we should be more bothered by how the humans were portrayed,” Poe says, “and that he’d rather have the build structure he has than a humanoid build structure because we’re ridiculous to look at from every angle.”

Finn doesn’t laugh. “I thought the humans were realistic,” he says slowly, thoughtfully. “The ones who are smart and powerful want to decide how things around them look and act. They love the ones that obey, and either hate or hurt the ones that don’t. Don’t they.”

The humor dies in Poe’s throat like a flare sputtering into ash. “I, uh,” he says, “yeah, I can see that. Some people are like that. Yeah.”

“Was the ending supposed to be happy or sad?” Finn wants to know.

“Um. Unsettling, I think,” Poe says. “Maybe. I dunno, buddy. I didn’t like the ending.”

Finn’s back goes stiff. “Oh.”

“It’s fine if you did.”

“I don't know if I did,” Finn says. “I mean, I'm happy for her. She got out. But she’s alone again. If she breaks, she won’t know how to fix herself, and the guy who had that information is dead. Like the prototypes before her.” He straightens, perking up a little. “Maybe that’s why. She learned it from him.”

Poe blinks at him. “You’ve lost me.”

“Her creator,” Finn says. “She learned from him that you kill the sources of knowledge. Start over with what you learned, not what they know. Like the training program for us was back on base. They didn’t let us do training, even the ‘troopers who advanced. They had new training whenever a squadron failed. To make up for why the ones who died weren’t successful.”

“Yeah, but you’re not artificial intelligence,” Poe says, grabbing onto the bit of Finn’s train of thought that hasn’t gone whooshing over his head. “You’re real intelligence. You’re _human,_ Finn.”

“How’s it different?” Finn wants to know.

“What, how’s AI different from you?”

“Yeah.”

Poe gestures helplessly at the wall. “You’re -- you were _born,_ first of all,” he says. “You learn from experience. You have feelings. You can change without someone changing your programming. You can’t be reprogrammed without your consent. And you can rebel and disobey. You’re not bound to the laws of robotics.”

“Neither is BB8, though,” Finn says. “All that stuff you just said, he can do all of that. I think. Especially the laws of robotics. He has a nasty taser. He used it on me on Jakku.”

BB8 happily chirps his full willingness to do so again. Poe gives him a warning look he suspects is significantly diminished by his struggle not to laugh. “Beebee has the capacity to learn built into his operating system,” he explains to Finn. “I could remove it if I wanted to, and then he’d just be a machine. He’d be a lot less useful, since he wouldn’t be able to make deductions and logic leaps or learn from past experiences, but he’d still function. All ‘droids are like that.”

He’s expecting Finn to react with revulsion, the twist of it tight in his own gut at the thought of hurting the little ‘droid looking up at him, cranial dome tipped at just the right angle to communicate sadness and disappointment, maybe even just a little bit of apprehension, but Finn just nods.

“That’s it, then,” Finn says.

“That’s what?” Poe wants to know, lost yet again.

“That’s the difference,” Finn says. “You can take away what makes them dangerous. That’s what the creator was going to take away from the girl. You can’t do that with organics. You have to kill them and start over. We can’t be reprogrammed.” He looks Poe in the eye, as calm as the still air around them. “We’re born how we are, and we die how we are. We learn but we don’t change. Not really.”

“Look, Finn,” Poe says, reaching out to touch Finn on the leg, squeezing the thick muscle of his thigh, “it’s just an old holo. It’s not -- you shouldn’t take it too seriously.”

Finn nods. “Okay.”

“But it’s okay if you do.”

“All right.”

“And I’ll pick something more uplifting for us to watch next time.”

 _That_ gets him a reaction, at least, Finn’s ready-for-orders-sir Stormtrooper affect falling away as he turns to frown at Poe. “I liked this one,” he says. “I like to see how humans are supposed to act. When there isn’t a war. When they’re just being humans.”

Poe’s heart _aches._ “You’re human, too, Finn,” he says.

“Yeah. And I’m learning, because that’s what humans do.” He sits up a little straighter. “That’s what they couldn’t take from me.”

Poe leans in and kisses him on the mouth before the desire to do so has even fully crossed his mind, Finn as happy as ever to return the gesture, though he keeps his hands to himself, still uncertain about when kissing’s just kissing and when it’s the start of something more. He doesn’t look terribly happy when BB8 rolls over to nudge Poe in the leg, distracting Poe from the kissing. The muscles of his thigh go tense under Poe’s fingertips when Poe stops kissing him and chuckles at his ‘droid’s tone, BB8 wanting to know if he has to stick around and watch Poe be sappy or if he can go do something else _anywhere_ else.

“You’re free to do what you want, Beebee,” Poe says, reaching down to pat the ‘doid on the head with his free hand.

BB8 considers him, then swivels his optic to consider Finn before informing Poe that he doesn’t think they have anything of value to teach him, nothing he can’t learn off the holonet, anyway. Then he rotates and rolls over to the door, trilling his cheekiest version of _goodnight_ over Poe’s reminder to use protection before navigating the seedier corners of the ‘net.

“What’d he say?” Finn wants to know.

Poe shakes his head. “Nothing that bears repeating,” he says. “But he’ll be gone for the rest of the night, so --”

Finn leans in and kisses him quiet, his interest in the holo and BB8 pushed to the side for the remainder of the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dance scene from _Ex Machina_ was trending on Facebook this past weekend, so my partner and I decided to check it out. Holy _shit_ what a film! Squirm-y uncomfortable in MANY places, beautifully directed, acted, and filmed, and that ending -- _wow._ I’m in the camp that thinks it should’ve ended 3 minutes earlier than it did, but I didn’t hate the extra minutes. Mostly just impressed that they took three actors, stuck them in a few different sets, and pulled such a tight, tense, think-y movie out of them. Good times. Also impressed that neither Gleeson nor Isaac bore _any_ resemblance to the characters they play in _Star Wars._ Good to see their range in acting, it was.

I don’t write Stormpilot generally speaking (I’m Skysolo to the end of the line, someone save me), but the thought of Poe and Finn watching _Ex Machina_ and Finn picking up on all the parallels between extorted AI and his life as a Stormtrooper lodged itself in my brain and _would not leave me alone._ My only regret is that I couldn’t find a way to squeeze in an observation from Finn about the physical similarities between Caleb and General Hux, and Nathan and Poe. Oh well. Also interesting that Nathan acted more like Hux and Caleb acted more like Poe in the film, but that didn’t fit in the story, either, so whatever, I’m going to go drink some $4 wine from Trader Joe’s and not worry about small things in life.

Finally, I have no idea if this has been done before, but if it has, I’m fairly confident that a) it has been done better and b) I need you to link me to it. You have my thanks in advance. *nod*


End file.
